Unhoneymooners

The Unhoneymooners- Christina Lauren
Gallery Books/Simon and Schuster
Release Date: May 14, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

Synopsis: Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion . . . she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas.

Olive braces herself for wedding hell, determined to put on a brave face, but when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. Suddenly there’s a free honeymoon up for grabs, and Olive will be damned if Ethan gets to enjoy paradise solo.

Agreeing to a temporary truce, the pair head for Maui. After all, ten days of bliss is worth having to assume the role of loving newlyweds, right? But the weird thing is . . . Olive doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, the more she pretends to be the luckiest woman alive, the more it feels like she might be.

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Olive Torres is the unlucky twin, the pessimist, the one who looks for how it can all go wrong and plan accordingly. But she doesn't consider the possible downsides of her twin's wedding being funded exclusively through a series of free contest wins.  This means a lime green bridesmaid dress and a huge seafood buffet that she can't eat because she's allergic to shellfish.  What she also doesn't consider is: do you really want to eat free seafood? Halfway through the wedding toasts the answer to that is: no when the entire seafood eating wedding party gets violent food poisoning.  Ami wants Olive to pretend to be her and take the free Maui honeymoon, Ami's husband Dane says the same to his brother Ethan.  Is a free ten day trip to Maui worth pretending to be married to someone you hate?

The Unhoneymooners is a fast paced comedy that hits the ground running with Ami's wedding and shows right off all the differences between the twins. Ami is organized, Olive goes with things as they need to happen; Ami is focused on winning things for free, Olive prefers not to wear a hideous bridesmaid dress just because it is free.  Olive believes she has bad luck- crazy things always happen to her instead of others, she was laid off two months ago and still hasn't gotten a new job, and now she's paired with Ethan Thomas in the wedding party.  She's convinced Ethan hates her, which is a problem since he's her new brother-in-law.  The two bicker and snark at each other constantly.  But neither are willing to turn down a free trip to Maui just because they have to pretend to be married. The fake honeymoon is like the wedding: a comedy of errors and a series of problems that end up showing Olive and Ethan that whatever they feel for each other, it isn't hate.  But can they keep the vacation romance going when they're home and surrounded by real life?

This was my first book by Christina Lauren, but certainly won't be my last. It was laugh out loud hysterical (don't read this book in public!), touchingly sweet and romantic, and heartbreakingly sad all in turns.  Even assuming Olive and Ethan will get over the fight at the end, you hurt for Olive having to go through it- although I was also super proud of Olive for pointing out to Ethan during his big gesture apology that he had hurt her and that wasn't something a ridiculously romantic moment could fix, and equally happy with Ethan for agreeing with her. Both of them grow throughout the book and are surprised by it, which I liked, and even the secondary characters like Ami and Dane had enough character and depth to make them real and impactful (which not all authors can/will do).  

A bit of a Pride and Prejudice comedy of errors, The Unhoneymooners is sweet and sassy, fun and funny, and an absolute must read!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Pride, Prejudice, & Other Flavors

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors- Somali Dev
William Morrow/Harper Collins
Release Date: May 7, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: It is a truth universally acknowledged that only in an overachieving Indian American family can a genius daughter be considered a black sheep.

Dr. Trisha Raje is San Francisco’s most acclaimed neurosurgeon. But that’s not enough for the Rajes, her influential immigrant family who’s achieved power by making its own non-negotiable rules:

·       Never trust an outsider

·       Never do anything to jeopardize your brother’s political aspirations

·       And never, ever, defy your family

Trisha is guilty of breaking all three rules. But now she has a chance to redeem herself. So long as she doesn’t repeat old mistakes.

Up-and-coming chef DJ Caine has known people like Trisha before, people who judge him by his rough beginnings and place pedigree above character. He needs the lucrative job the Rajes offer, but he values his pride too much to indulge Trisha’s arrogance. And then he discovers that she’s the only surgeon who can save his sister’s life.

As the two clash, their assumptions crumble like the spun sugar on one of DJ’s stunning desserts. But before a future can be savored there’s a past to be reckoned with...

A family trying to build home in a new land.

A man who has never felt at home anywhere.

And a choice to be made between the two.

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Loosely based on Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice, Somali Dev's Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors centers around Dr. Trisha Raje, a talented neurosurgeon from a powerful Indian family, and DJ Caine, a chef specializing in Indian/French fusion foods who dropped everything and moved to California when he discovered his little sister had a terminal diagnosis of a brain tumor.  When Trisha says she can operate on Emma and save her life- but not her sight- DJ should be thrilled.  And he is. Except he hates the arrogant and privileged Dr. Raje, Emma refuses to have the surgery, and the only way he can earn enough to pay the bills is by catering a series of major events- for Trisha's family.  Both have pasts they need to deal with if they can have futures, but pain from the past doesn't let go easily.

Perhaps even more than Austen's original, a fitting alternative title for this book could be First Impressions.  Trisha makes a poor first impression on DJ without even realizing it, and everything she does after that only makes her worse in his eyes.  As is typical for doctors, Trisha is proud of how good she is at her work- occasionally almost to the point of arrogance.  It especially seems that way because while she's great with brains, she's not as good with people.  She claims to have emotional blindness, and never really feels comfortable interacting with anyone on a social level. What she really seems to have is a lack of confidence in herself for anything outside of her work.  Having trusted her roommate in college only to have that roommate harm Trisha's older brother means she's less likely to trust her judgment when it comes to people.  She has spent her entire life since then making herself pay for her mistake, and mourning the fact that it destroyed her relationship with her family.

DJ Caine is a loving older brother and a genius in the kitchen.  He knows the value of family- and little sister Emma is all the family he has left.  He also knows the importance of good impressions and getting along with others no matter how he feels.  DJ prides himself on his calm and friendly attitude when inside he's a mass of anger and unresolved issues from a hard childhood, and carries a chip on his shoulder the size of a continent but doesn't seem to be aware of it.  One poor encounter with Trisha and he allows all his anger and frustration to focus on her: a woman he sees as arrogant, entitled, and oblivious to others in her perfect ivory tower with her perfect family and no problems ever.

I found Trisha and DJ to be characters I sympathized with but at the same time couldn't always like.  DJ in particular I had a hard time liking for his harsh and judgmental attitude towards Trisha, although he seems to give everyone else plenty of chances.  Both characters were compelling, and complicated, but sometimes Dev's writing of them seemed inconsistent. For example, Trisha's comment that DJ overheard is one that jarringly doesn't sound at all like her, and she never remembers saying it so we never find out what she was thinking when she said it.  The secondary characters felt, for the most part, rather 2-dimensional.  They were there to make things complicated for the main characters and occasionally impart words of wisdom, but felt uneven to me.  Trisha's family claims they understand her and her awkwardness with people, but then never seem to take that into consideration when dealing with her.  It's hard to tell if they say and do things to make her feel bad because that's how she interprets them or because that's what is happening. 

Even when I wasn't always sure I liked the characters, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors was a book I had a hard time putting down.  Fast-paced and complicated, Somali Dev mixes together flavors of a variety of cultures and individuals to create a compelling, vibrant story.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Tightrope

Tightrope- Amanda Quick
Berkley Publishing
Release Date: May 7, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Former trapeze artist Amalie Vaughn moved to Burning Cove to reinvent herself, but things are not going well. After spending her entire inheritance on a mansion with the intention of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast, she learns too late that the villa is said to be cursed. When the first guest, Dr. Norman Pickwell, is murdered by his robot invention during a sold-out demonstration, rumors circulate that the curse is real. 

In the chaotic aftermath of the spectacle, Amalie watches as a stranger from the audience disappears behind the curtain. When Matthias Jones reappears, he is slipping a gun into a concealed holster. It looks like the gossip that is swirling around him is true—Matthias evidently does have connections to the criminal underworld. 

Matthias is on the trail of a groundbreaking prototype cipher machine. He suspects that Pickwell stole the device and planned to sell it. But now Pickwell is dead and the machine has vanished. When Matthias’s investigation leads him to Amalie’s front door, the attraction between them is intense, but she knows it is also dangerous. Amalie and Matthias must decide if they can trust each other and the passion that binds them, because time is running out.

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Tightrope is the third book in Amanda Quick's new 1930s historical series (The Other Lady Vanishes, The Girl Who Knew Too Much), set in the glamorous small town of Burning Cove. Like many of Burning Cove's residents, Amalie is trying to reinvent herself.  She survived attempted murder by a serial killer and is ready for the quiet life of an innkeeper.  All she has to work with is her aunt Hazel and the steely determination to make her new venture successful.  When possible mobster Matthias Jones shows up to investigate the murder of her first (and only) guest, Amalie sees nothing but trouble unless the case gets solved quickly, so she makes sure to be part of the investigation.  Matthias (long-time readers of Quick will cheer to see a return of the Jones family) may be trained as an engineer but his particular talent is in knowing the truth when he hears it- making him ideal in discovering the truth behind the murder.  Sadly, being a human lie detector can make romantic relationships awkward to say the least.  He's shocked when Amalie doesn't seem bothered by his talent, and knows he needs to see where the attraction between them can lead.

Matthias is a great addition to the Jones family tree, and Quick's heroes in general.  He's intelligent, cynical, conspiracy-minded, a great liar, and knows a good thing when he sees one.  I thought it was sweet that he also shows a bit more vulnerability than others, or maybe Amalie just sees that vulnerability more.  Amalie is a quietly strong and brave woman willing to start over as many times as she needs to and to fight for what is hers.  She and Matthias are a great fit, even if it takes them a little while to figure it out.  I also enjoyed seeing more of reputed mob boss Luther Pell in Tightrope. As a secondary character he's been growing throughout the series and gets to have some truly shining moments here- as well as turning some of the reader's preconceived ideas on their heads!

The plot is a complicated mix of spies, government secrets, revenge, and greed that Quick weaves together into a seamless and intricate whole with even more than her usual storytelling talent.  Snappy dialogue, sharp wits, and quirky characters may be Quick's stock in trade, but Tightrope felt to me like  Quick is becoming even more comfortable in her new era of 1930s golden-age glamor. Tightly written and delightfully complex, Tightrope will thrill Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz fans and the beautiful art deco cover will hopefully entice a new group of readers to the wonderful world of Burning Cove. 

The Regency Years

The Regency Years: During which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron makes love, and Britain Becomes Modern- Robert Morrison
W.W. Norton & Company
Release Date: April 30, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis:The Victorians are often credited with ushering in our current era, yet the seeds of change were planted in the years before. The Regency (1811–1820) began when the profligate Prince of Wales―the future king George IV―replaced his insane father, George III, as Britain’s ruler.

Around the regent surged a society steeped in contrasts: evangelicalism and hedonism, elegance and brutality, exuberance and despair. The arts flourished at this time with a showcase of extraordinary writers and painters such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, the Shelleys, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner. Science burgeoned during this decade, too, giving us the steam locomotive and the blueprint for the modern computer.

Yet the dark side of the era was visible in poverty, slavery, pornography, opium, and the gothic imaginings that birthed the novel Frankenstein. With the British military in foreign lands, fighting the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the War of 1812 in the United States, the desire for empire and an expanding colonial enterprise gained unstoppable momentum. Exploring these crosscurrents, Robert Morrison illuminates the profound ways this period shaped and indelibly marked the modern world.

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Regency England (1811-1820) is one of the time periods most favored for historical fiction and movies.  It is the time of the Duke of Wellington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Byron and Shelley, Austen and Scott.  In The Regency Years, Robert Morrison aims to give the general reader an in-depth look at  this short, but important, time span.  He argues that the Regency period plants the seeds for the modern age we think of being ushered in by the Victorians. 

Morrison does an excellent job of examining both the positive and the negative parts of Regency life. The grandeur and beauty live side by side with the excesses and squalor.  Chapters cover economics, social reforms, political strife, literature, science, colonialism and war, sex and entertainment.  While the majority of The Regency Years does not contain information that is new to Regency history devotees, Morrison presents it in a way that ties together aspects of Regency life in new and interesting ways.  Quotes from letters, diaries, and references to popular literature create a well-rounded and well-researched history.

Fast-paced and written in a lively and engaging style, The Regency Years is an excellent history for readers beginning to study the time period, and a detailed, delightful read for those looking to round out their knowledge of this fascinating time period. 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Good Queen Anne

Good Queen Anne: Appraising the Life and Reign of the Last Stuart Monarch- Judith Cromwell
McFarland/Amazon Digital Services
Release Date: February 28, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Queen Anne (1665–1714) was not charismatic, brilliant or beautiful, but under her rule, England rose from the chaos of regicide, civil war and revolution to the cusp of global supremacy. She fought a successful overseas war against Europe’s superpower and her moderation kept the crown independent of party warfare at home. This biography reveals Anne Stuart as resolute, kind and practical—a woman who surmounted personal tragedy and poor health to become a popular and effective ruler.

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Britain's Queen Anne (1665-1714) is not someone I really knew anything about, so I was excited to see a new biography on her come out.  By the time I had finished Good Queen Anne I could only ask myself: why is she not more well known?  She was everything we would want in a world leader today: a strong woman, a fierce moderate, an independent thinker, and a kind human being. Author Judith Cromwell does an excellent job bringing Anne to life as a fully human and relatable royal: a young woman, a princess, a married woman, and a queen.  She united England and Scotland, helped steer England through the long War of Spanish Succession, and held her country together at a time when party politics was leaning to extremes on both sides.  I loved that Anne always insisted on her cabinet being as moderate and free of party politics as she could manage- something today's politics could learn from.  She insisted on putting what was good for the country ahead of what was good for an individual, whether that individual was her or not.  And she tried to keep from being beholden to either party, something not always possible during war. 

The book did have its' flaws, mostly in the writing style in my opinion.  Cromwell has a tendency to begin by describing the weather before entering a new section, which works in small doses but towards the end began to happen so often that it felt contrived.  While I expect the intent was to make the reader feel a part of the events it became something I was so conscious of that it would jolt me from the book to notice instead of flowing seamlessly.  But my real problem with the writing was the overwhelming amount of repetition. While I don't mind a bit of repetition to help keep people and titles straight over the course of a 600 page book, I don't need to be constantly told that Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was Anne's close friend and confident (until Anne became Queen. It was downhill after that). I don't need to be constantly told that Sarah became threatened and jealous of Anne's maid Abigail and believed (despite no evidence) that Abigail was influencing Anne's politics.  While the relationship between Anne and Sarah was an essential part to Anne's story, there were better ways to emphasize that then the repetition Cromwell used- occasionally almost to the word.

Overall, Good Queen Anne is a wonderful, well-researched book about a strong woman who stood her ground in the face of even stronger personalities, power plays, and outright bullying by family members, "friends", and politicians.  Cromwell reveals a queen I didn't know I wanted to know about- but am incredibly glad I do now.  Three cheers for Good Queen Anne!  

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Cities

Cities: The First 6,000 Years- Monica L. Smith
Viking/Penguin Group
Release Date: April 16, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚

Synopsis:Six thousand years ago, there were no cities on the planet. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas, and that number is growing. Weaving together archeology, history, and contemporary observations, Monica Smith explains the rise of the first urban developments and their connection to our own. She takes readers on a journey through the ancient world of Tell Brak in modern-day Syria; Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan in Mexico; her own digs in India; as well as the more well-known Pompeii, Rome, and Athens. Along the way, she presents the unique properties that made cities singularly responsible for the flowering of humankind: the development of networked infrastructure, the rise of an entrepreneurial middle class, and the culture of consumption that results in everything from take-out food to the tell-tale secrets of trash.

Cities is an impassioned and learned account full of fascinating details of daily life in ancient urban centers, using archaeological perspectives to show that the aspects of cities we find most irresistible (and the most annoying) have been with us since the very beginnings of urbanism itself. She also proves the rise of cities was hardly inevitable, yet it was crucial to the eventual global dominance of our species--and that cities are here to stay.

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In her book Cities: The First 6,000 Years, archaeologist Monica L. Smith gives us the story of cities: how people built them and why, how ancient cities compare to modern cities, and how cities impact the people who live in them.  It is a fascinating look at the urban environments that so many of us take for granted, unquestioningly walking streets everyday without considering why or what went before.

Smith's love of archaeology and discovery shine clearly off of each page- she seems as eager to share her discoveries with us as we are to read about them.  What I found most interesting was that Smith's views on the development of cities were such a seamless flow between the physical and the psychological.  She describes what a city needs: infrastructure of roads, water, food, planning, but also what a city does: it provides humans with exposure to people, ideas, and consumer goods that they would never see in a rural setting.  Much of the book examines how consumer habits are both created by the environment but also create the environment and the people's mindsets in turn.

There is also the inevitable discussion of what comes next.  What about the collapse of cities?  Looking at the question from an archaeologist's point of view, Smith argues that perhaps this isn't as inevitable as we often think.  Cities may grow and change with the times, the environment, and the people in them, but historically very few simply end.  And even if a city ends (like Pompeii), its people may survive, move on, integrate and influence other cities.

Although occasionally repetitive, Cities is a book full of fascinating information and new ways for people to look at the urban environments around them.  An excellent read for history lovers, those interested in archaeology, or even human psychology, as Smith makes the argument that all of those aspects go into what makes a city and how we should look at their history. 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

True Story of the Great Escape

The True Story of the Great Escape: Stalag Luft III, March 1944- Jonathan Vance
Greenhill Books
Release Date: March 31, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24th–25th 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen before.The prison break from Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it outside the wire – but only three made it outside Nazi Germany. Fifty were executed by the Gestapo.Jonathan Vance tells the incredible story that was made famous by the 1963 film The Great Escape. The escape is a classic tale of prisoner and their wardens in a battle of wits and wills.The brilliantly conceived escape plan is overshadowed only by the colourful, daring (and sometimes very funny) crew who executed it – literally under the noses of German guards.From their first days in Stalag Luft III and the forming of bonds key to such exploits, to the tunnel building, amazing escape and eventual capture, Vance's history is a vivid, compelling look at one of the greatest 'exfiltration' missions of all time.

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In honor of the 75th anniversary of the "Great Escape", Jonathan Vance's book, originally privately published as A Gallant Company, has been updated and reissued by Greenhill Books.  My first reaction on finishing this book was "Wow. Just. Wow."  

The True Story of the Great Escape is a detailed, carefully researched, and finely crafted account of the men of Stalag Luft III and their daring escape attempt on the night of March 24-25, 1944.  Vance gives the reader brief accounts of all of the principal POWs- their pre-war lives, how they came to be pilots, as well as the mission when they were captured- in between describing life at the camp.  What I found the most fascinating were his descriptions of how the prisoners made things.  When the plan for the great escape went underway an entire committee of prisoners made perfectly crafted clothes, forged papers, handheld compasses, maps, and anything else that might be needed- made them from materials they scrounged from the camp or bribed from guards. 

As much as this is a book about perseverance and ingenuity in the face of overwhelming odds, it is also a tribute to the men themselves.  Vance honors them all for their bravery and achievements from Roger "Big X" Bushell who masterminded the scheme down to escapees like Canadian pilot George Wiley (my grandfather's cousin).  Even though there is no surprise about how this escape will end for most of the men, I found myself hoping for the best and near tears reading what would be final goodbyes in the camp, let alone the orders for fifty of the recaptured escapers to be shot.  This is a very human story, from the pilots to the prison guards, Vance refuses to let us imagine any of them as stereotypes from a movie. 

Poignant and powerful, The True Story of the Great Escape is a must read for any history lover.     

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review